John Steinbeck based much of his fiction on actual events and
experimented with several genres of nonfiction, including personal
essays, travel writing, and political and social commentary. His
interest in journalism, however, is often treated as ancillary to
his writing of fiction, which is regarded as his real work and true
calling. Steinbeck scholars allude to journalism when discussing
Steinbeck's development as a writer or when chronicling and
categorizing his work, but to date they have not investigated
Steinbeck's role as a literary journalist with the same analytical
zeal they bring to the study of his fiction. "The truth is that
Steinbeck was really a journalist at heart," Gore Vidal said in
1993 interview with Steinbeck biographer Jay Parini. "All of his
best work was journalism in that it was inspired by daily events,
by current circumstances. He didn't 'invent' things. He 'found'
them" (Steinbeck 274).

Although important and often quoted, Vidal's statement refers
primarily to Steinbeck's fiction that is "inspired by daily
events," or, in other words, fiction that is drawn from the same
reservoir as traditional journalism. This study, on the other hand,
identifies Steinbeck as a literary journalist, pays tribute to the
journalism that led to The Grapes of Wrath (1939), and
explores the importance of Travels with Charley in Search of
America (1962) as an example of Steinbeck's skill as a
writer of extended nonfiction. The study is divided into three
parts: 1) an overview of the tenets of literary journalism most
applicable to Steinbeck's work, a chronicle of Steinbeck's time as
a journalist, and a list of several publications that suggest his
ability to move comfortably across the arguably indistict lines
between fiction and nonfiction; 2) a discussion of Travels
with Charley as an undervalued example of literary
journalism; and 3) a tribute to Steinbeck's artistry in The
Grapes of Wrath, which transforms historical figures and
events into their mythical representations.

Because Travels with Charley is understood to be
nonfiction and illustrates clearly several accepted tenets of
literary journalism, I will introduce it first, even though it was
published more than twenty years after The Grapes of
Wrath. In doing so, I am not suggesting that Travels
with Charley deserves more critical acclaim than The
Grapes of Wrath, which blurs the lines between fiction and
nonfiction and remains a notable example of Steinbeck's ability to
write a celebrated fictional work that depends upon people he knew
and events he lived.

Steinbeck as a Literary Journalist

Since Steinbeck's biographers and critics are often trained in
literary criticism and not professional journalism, much of their
scholarship tends to focus upon the historical distinctions between
news and feature writing, upon traditional notions of truth-telling
in American journalism practice, and upon Steinbeck's reliance on
realism as a kind of reconstructed journalism. In the introduction
to America and Americans and Selected Nonfiction, for
example, editors Susan Shillinglaw and Jackson J. Benson write,
"Steinbeck's journalism is the record of a man who wanted to get it
right, who wanted to see clearly and accurately, without
superciliousness—and without ever claiming that his was the
definitive, or even a fully accurate, view. He always tried for the
human perspective, as much as possible without prejudice"
(xvii).

While the themes introduced by scholars such as Shillinglaw,
Benson, and others, and the recently published collections of
Steinbeck's nonfiction are all essential, it remains imperative to
examine Steinbeck's contribution to literary journalism as well. To
that end, this study relies upon Travels with Charley in
Search of America and The Grapes of Wrath to
illustrate several tenets of literary journalism, including an
unapologetic first-person point of view, advocacy for the deeper
truth that underlies events, immersion in the lives of subjects,
and the use of actual sources with (admittedly) recreated
dialogue.

"Honesty Has a Way of Creeping in Even When It Was Not
intended."

—John Steinbeck

It is important to remember that Steinbeck did not simply
experiment with journalistic techniques; he also worked as a
serious and committed journalist at several times in his career.
Most notably, Steinbeck covered World War II and wrote insightfully
about international politics...

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